Posts Tagged ‘money’

You guys know which movie Chuck is talking about, right?! Or are we really dating ourselves here? We grew up with all the 80’s movies and so, by default, so did Chuck even though he’s not quite as old as us.

I personally love looking at and into old hangars. You never know what you’ll find in there (of course there is the occasional rat to deal with) and I have seen some great things. Unfortunately I don’t get around the really small airports much anymore flying the heavy helicopters (Chucks hangar would probably be blown down by a Skycrane) but occasionally we end up near old hangars. The best part is if you end up running into some great guy who is in the middle of restoring a really cool plane. I have to say, I have never run into anybody in an old hangar that wasn’t excited to share his and/or his aircraft’s story. Imagine taking a tour through some of the old “Skunk Works” hangars?!!

What are some cool airports with interesting old hangars you guys have stumbled across?

It’s raining cats and dogs here right now. Weirdly enough, when I’m really busy and have tons of work, I like this kind of weather. Because it means I can’t do any other things like gardening etc., since I can’t leave the house (I’m allergic to dogs and especially cats). That means I can really focus on my work with a clear conscience.

What a great idea of Hans! He sure knows how to motivate his staff. And, since we want to spread the positivity around you guys too, how about a really motivating blog post to go along with today’s comic?

A good place to start is always a Winston Churchill quote. Allegedly he once said “Never, never, never give up.” Awesome quote, isn’t it? Now imagine a great photograph of a sunrise in the mountains, or a serene lake, or a guy climbing one of those monumental rocks in the Colorado desert, with that quote superimposed on it in a stylish font. Makes it even better, doesn’t it?

Churchill definitely pictured something like that in his mind, because he took his own advice seriously, including smoking and drinking. Another great motivational quote comes to mind, from Walt Disney: “If you can dream it, you can do it.” Unless you dream of fighting ice giants with a laser lance, riding on godzilla. That’s quite impossible, because the laser would only pass through the ice, of course.

And last but not least, you should aim for the moon! Because if you miss, you may hit a star. Albeit many thousands of years later, and you will be incinerated instantly. But that’s nothing to worry about, because you would have suffocated long before that.

Anyway, I hope I could motivate you and inspire you to some great deeds today with these words! Go forth and be awesome!

First off: I will be at the AERO in Friedrichshafen next week, and will be signing books at the Fliegermagazin booth on Friday 11th from 11:00 to 13:00. Actually, it’s bigger than a booth, because they have a huge area for themselves in the middle of hall A5 (A5-325), so it’s really easy to find. Hope to see some of you there! Even if you already have all our books, just stop by to say hi!

About todays strip: All the non-American readers among you might pause and wonder if we misspelled aluminium. Well, no one knows exactly where the fine line between misspelling something or spelling something the American way is exactly, but in this case it is perfectly fine American spelling. “Nucular” is still wrong though.

It seems Hans really has his ears on the ground when it comes to investment. He probably should read a bit further into the subject of Bitcoin before investing more money in it though. By the way, we’re accepting Bitcoin in our online shops! We only had one order paid that way so far, but, as Hans said, it is important to go with the times. I am pretty sure that cryptocurrencies are here to stay, and it feels exciting to witness their birth. It’s like being there at the beginning of the internet, although it is probably a long way before those things are as stable, easy to use and widely accepted as e.g. email.

I’m sure all of us have daydreamed about winning the lottery, right? Even though I am convinced that the lottery is just an ingenious scheme to put an additional tax on the great unwashed masses while at the same time giving them the illusion of being able to escape their squalor, I still buy a ticket once in a while. The reasoning behind that decision is that, even though I know the statistics are against me, I feel like I have to give luck a chance to strike. I can’t complain about never winning the lottery if I don’t play in the first place.

It is important to not make gambling your primary investment vehicle though. I’ve seen little old, poor looking ladies spend what seemed like their whole disposable income on lottery scratch tickets, and stuff like that just breaks my heart. But spending $10 or something a month on things like that is perfectly fine in my book.

Here in Europe there is a continent-wide lottery game, where recently there was a 100 million Euro jackpot. I have to be honest, I wouldn’t know what to do with that kind of money. Although it’d certainly qualify as a problem everybody would like to have, having a windfall of that magnitude would probably totally disrupt your life.

You’d probably have to keep really quiet about it. In our case, I’m sure you guys would notice though, because there would suddenly be a Chicken Wings animated TV series! And in Chuck’s case, I guess Julio would suddenly find a complete Corsair in the hangar …

Leaving all reasonable investments aside, what would be the most ridiculous or extravagant purchase you would make if you suddenly had a hundred million Euros or Dollars?

So it looks like as if getting rejected by NASA has not slowed Chuck down at all. He’s once again picked himself up and is motoring on with trying to make his dreams a reality. To go where no chicken has gone before…

Will he go to space this time? Is he gonna be able to save enough money for a trip on Virgin Galactic’s “Spaceship 2″? Will Sir Richard Branson have something to say about Chuck going to space?

Time will tell.

For all of you, who are not familiar with Virgin Galactic or Richard Branson, check out their website. The whole thing looks like a pretty crazy project. We’d love to see this thing take off (so to speak) and have Chuck go to space with Justin Bieber, Ashton Kutcher, and Brad Pitt who all already booked tickets for the December 2013 space flight.

While the customer is king in many businesses, it seems that at Roost Air cash is king, and the customer is only king by association to said cash. I’m sure they’re not alone with that business philosophy. But to be honest, with that mindset, they’re still ahead of the amazingly high number of businesses who won’t even let the fact that you pay them money deter them from treating you with absolute indifference.

Fun fact: In Japanese, the phrase actually goes “the customer is god”. Although one has to keep in mind that the Japanese have a different concept of god or gods. They certainly don’t mean Yahwe with that expression!

Do you remember the fuel prices back in 2008? It probably was my biased perception, but I got the impression that when crude oil prices doubled during the course of one year, so did the gas prices at the pump. However, when oil consequentely dropped from $150 to $35, I don’t remember the gas prices falling to 1/4 of what they were at the peak. I know, I know, there’s more than the crude oil price determining the price at the pump. Where I live, about 2/3 of what I pay is taxes. But although I use my car very little, gas prices are one of my pet peeves. It’s the only retail product where the price changes daily. I mean there are other commodity markets with highly variably prices too. Like wheat, meat, coffee, cocoa etc. Yet Starbucks doesn’t change its prices daily. And also burger prices seem to be stable over the short term. I see no reason why a company can’t calculate its prices and keep them stable for a month at least. Is it just that gasoline is such a fast moving market with razor thin margins, or are they ripping us off?

I think the most important characteristic you can have to achieve any goal in life, is determination. If you really, really want it, and you have the ability to go through adversity, there will be a way. And if it was easy, the feeling of reward and sense of achievement would be much less. Oh, yes, and no matter what you’re trying to achieve, money always helps too.

Money is a great eaquilizer, I think. If you do something you love for money, it makes it less fun, because it somehow desecrates the act and you have to stick to deadlines, rules and what other people tell you to do. On the other hand, if you do something you hate for money, it might make it bearable, if not even enjoyable.

And then it all depends on how much money you make. Becoming filthy rich while doing something you love would be the optimum, of course. But if that option is not available (as for 99.9% of all people), would you rather make a lot of money working a job you hate, or make enough money to get by, by doing what you love?